Punch (27.1854)

14G

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

OUR RUSSIAN GUESTS.

Poor fellows, whom Nicholas no more commands,
Having laid down your arms, give us also your Lands,
We forget yon were foes—and in truth you were not,
Any more than the stones that were crushed with our shot.

You were only a Tyrant's unfortunate thralls,
With your bodies for bricks who built ramparts and walls,
Which if we, to hit at him, were forced to strike through,
'Twas with sorrow and pain and compassion for you.

He piled you, like sandbags, or clods of mere dirt,

ankles, finely arched insteps, are the reward of walking or riding out at
a good pace, and for a reasonable distance, every practicable day. And
by these means is preserved for many a year a contour, the cut of which
resembles that of the doe or the gazelle.

At no period of the year is any healthy young woman, of whatever
station, obliged to exchange out-of-door recreation for in-door amuse-
ment, except when it hails or rains, or snows, or thunders and lightens,
or blows a hurricane. Are there not furs? never mind the expense.-
the war with llussia has not made them dearer than the attendance of
a simpering doctor. Are there not muffs, and boas, and all sorts of
waterproof armour ? Young ladies, take the advice of your elders, and
as the old women say, " Get out! "—in all tolerable weather.

As to necessary in-door amusement, mind, it also may be made con-
ducive to beauty, by being rendered in some degree inl ellectual.

The blows which we aimed at his power to avert ; V t aa*' 2*a wP ™crfu, m ue&ree, ™euecnuu.

He cares not what swarms of his vassals may fall Intelligence adds considerably to the lustre o the eyes, which, without

Whilst yet he has more to oppose to our ball. ^ iavf- fe -h"er ot beads, whilst the best shaped and most

splendidly coloured tace which they can be stuck m resembles that oi a
waxen dummy in a hair-dresser's shop. In order, therefore, to attract
admiration, ladies of fashion would do well to cultivate intelligence, to
r;ome extent, by way of in-door amusement.

Beauty may be called a fading flower; but it is a flower that will
fade very much the sooner for being taken in-doors for the winter, like
a geranium. Even Le Follet must, on reflection, if able to reflect, see
the justice of these observations. It will admit that a lady is not a
mere clothes-horse, and will perhaps allow that the figure is more than
the are is, and the face than the bonnet.

Should a score of his serfs stop a shot or a shell,
That, your monarch considers, will do pretty wed,
For he thinks his loss less in the slaves that we slay,
Than our own in the missiles which we shoot away.

Come ; you 're out of the clutch of your savage old chief,
Here's some bread for you : here are potatoes and beef.
And to wash it all down here's a jug of goou Vcr ;
We'll make ■vou all jolly now we have you here.

May our nations soon cease this sad warfare to wage,
And your Czar have been caught and confined in a cage,
May you then to jour country take back all you've gained,
Whilst by war's happy fortune you here were detained.

May you take the plumpndding whereon yon have fed,
And the notions that each has had put in his head,
That by you Holy llussia delivered may be,
You, through being made prisoners, who learned to be free.

We shall make your captivity easv to bear,
And may our own people as happily fare,
As many as—but, may their numbers be few !
Are, or shall be, in like situation with you.

LADIES' HABITS FOR OCTOBER.

Here is a morsel of fatuous delicacy, nicely adapted to the palate of
imbecile elegance. The description of the fashions for October, in
Le Follet, commences with the following scrap of fiddlefaddle :

'•Notwithstanding the unusually long duration of the fine weather with which our
fair patrons have been so highly favoured during their stay at the gay chateaux of
their aristocratic acquaintances, or at the various fashionable watering places, the
chilly mornings and evenings, and the undeniable lengthening of the latter, indicate
but too plainly the approach of that periodof the year when in-door amusements must
be made to compensate for out-of-door recreation."

Le Follet may be done by a man six feet three inches high, with bulk
and brains in proportion. He may have penned the foregoing specimen
of queasy miminypiminyism with a fist like a shoulder of mutton, imme-

oh ! here's a couple of jolly mushrooms

A STORM IN A KENSINGTON (SLOP) BASIN.

Kensington, our favourite suburb, has lately been the scene of a
series of frightful convulsions, in consequence of an election of what arc
called "Improvement Commissioners ;" for improvement is a quality of
which Kensington is especially susceptible. The election was carried on
amidst the mingled foam of eloquence and porter; the mouths of the
orators and the heads of the pint-pots were equally frothy. Such was
the excitement of the hour that the stranger passing casually through
the town was dragged in to vote, and even children were pulled up to

diately after devouring the greater part of a leg, or swallowing some the poll, with a reckless disregard to everything,
pounds of bacon and cabbage, washed down with a quart or two of When the poll had closed, everybody threatened to break the head of
Barclay and Perkins's stout. He may be able to knock down an ox ! anybody who dared to add the numbers up ; and somebody ran off to
walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours, and fight, with the likelihood ; bury the voting lists in the churchyard till somebody else ran to dig

to thrash, any man of his weight—that being fourteen stone. He may,
however, have no other business, whereby to support his huge frame,
and satiate his craving maw, than that of writing stuff to flatter the
vanity of the softer portion of the softer sex. Necessity alone—the
necessity of gorging and swilling—may have compelled him to file a
masculine mind down to this. So no more of him; only let the readers
Avhom he addresses beware, if they want to look pretty for any while,
how they follow his suggestion with respect to in-door amusement.
Every woman, every fashionable woman, even, has a heart, at least
considered as the organ of circulation; and blood vessels, on the healthy
play of which depends the bloom of her face, and which will not play
healthily without out-of-door exercise. She has also muscles and
ligaments, wmich have to brace her up, hold her together, and keep her
clean-limbed, but will do nothing of the sort for long unless they are

them up again. The chairman's coat was pulled from his back in a
boisterous game of oranges and lemons, into which both parties, some-
how or other, happened to fall, until all fell down together. One man
began to ring the church bells, and another threatened to wring his
nose for doing so. A 1imid adherent of the blues called out "Police !"
Another threw himself into the arms of Pumell, the beadle; and a
third ran up the ladder of the fire escape, in a panic which only sub-
sided when the fireman thrashed him down again.

AN ACTRESS IN A RAINY DAY.

The Trench papers inform us that the celebrated tragic actress,
Mademoiselle Georges, is, in consideration of her straitened cir-
maintained in proper tension by the same meaus. Let her loll about | cumstances, to enjoy the privilege^ of taking charge of the sticks and

all day in a close "muggy' house, instead of exerting herself for a j umbrellas at the Great Paris Exhibition. It seems rather infra dig. on
due time in the fresh air, and she quickly begins to droop and look j the part of an eminent tragedienne to accept an office so humble, but it
unwholesome. Soon her complexion fades, or grows discoloured, her is humanely felt by the Government that she who has suffered from the

features are puffed or shrunken, her form either wastes or swells, she
gets either haggard and lanky, or round and fat; her figure tumbles all
of a heap ; her ankles give out, her feet spread and flatten: her elastic
step becomes a waddle : and her person altogether acquires the style of
a cow.

Brilliant eyes., on the other hand, complexion to match, features
retaining the chiselled outline, a slim and smart figure, neatly turned

storms of adversity deserves to be sheltered from those storms by as
many umbrellas as the public will place in her hands; while the charge
of a number of sticks is one that an actress who must have seen a great
variety of sticks on the stage will find rather congenial to her old
habits. Though the office is temporary, it is possible that it ;may be
made permanent by giving her the custody of the umbrella of Louio
Philippe, which seems at present useless to the Citizen King's family.